


Transitional Object

by Miso



Series: A War He Can't Forget [13]
Category: SCTV (Canada TV)
Genre: (specifically emotional abuse), Gen, M/M, Past Child Abuse, Repressed Memories, Therapy, probably poorly written therapy lol
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-08
Updated: 2017-06-08
Packaged: 2018-11-11 01:27:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11138478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Miso/pseuds/Miso
Summary: Floyd revisits something he thought he forgot. It isn't pretty.





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**Author's Note:**

> there is NO ONE i will not project my Thing [tm] for security objects onto. NO ONE. floyd especially seemed ripe for it considering he struggles with anxiety and ptsd among other things. while i haven't had this kind of thing happen with any of my security objects, i guarantee you my reaction would be similar. earl is a good bf. :'3 (i swear, i want to re-rail the war series to be about floyd's war trauma, but his abusive childhood is just as important and traumatic as the war was to him. :C poor guy.)

Your therapist says you have repressed memories. Various things that happened, that fed into your trauma, that you don't want to remember. So you pretend you can't. She says it's not a deeply researched field, and that there are faults and no real way to make sure the "recovered" memories aren't falsified ones without corroborated evidence, but the fact that you have big gaps of memory when before and after are crystal clear point to you having a nice case of bottle-it-up-syndrome.

For whatever reason, she's convinced you need to find those memories to deal with them. For what you assume are equally-stupid reasons, you agreed. You already feel like a gigantic doofus going to therapy in the first place (even as everyone around you reassured you that it doesn't mean you're crazy or weak, just that you're acknowledging the need for help), and now here you are dredging the depths of your psyche to find memories you're not sure you even want back.

Your therapist's office isn't Spartan in its decor, but you did notice it lacked the giant couch you expected when you first walked in. Evidently, she thinks for this, you'll need it, as the usual comfortable chair you usually sit in is replaced with- what else?- a big Freudian couch. Dr. Cheryl Kinsey would have a field day with this, you think as you lay back.

Your therapist turns on a "guided meditation" tape and sits back, remaining silent. You close your eyes and hope you don't just fall asleep and have a dream about a sunny meadow or some dumb shit like that. You sigh softly and make a comment that this feels silly. She tells you to be patient and try to access the memories, that it might take a while.

The first thing to come to mind hits you like a ton of bricks. You're five. Five years old, and Mom's taken your brother Tom to the doctor since he's come down with the flu. Your other siblings, with the exception of Elizabeth and Rebecca, who are are still toddlers and currently napping, are at school. You're essentially alone with your father in the house, and you haven't yet learned to fear him. You're casually playing with some Matchbox cars on the floor, with what you now realize was a security blanket draped over your shoulders. At the time, it didn't really have a term. Your mother called it your blanket and nothing else. You preferred Mee-Mee. It didn't make sense, but you suppose most kids' names for their beloved blankets or stuffed animals don't.

You thought you remembered all of this clearly, though. Your blanket was red and fuzzy, warm and trimmed with sky-blue satin. It was your best friend for the first few years of your life. Mee-Mee was your most treasured possession and no one else was allowed to touch it, lest you melt down. In the memory, your father is busy eyeing you from his armchair. You crash a pickup truck into a Ferrari and laugh until your father grabs Mee-Mee from around your shoulders. You make a little noise of confusion. The only time anyone takes Mee-Mee from you is when Mom needs to wash it. She just did that the other day. It doesn't need washed yet.

You ask your father why he's taking it. He tells you you're five years old and that's plenty old enough to get through life without a blanket. Boris ditched his teddy bear when he was four, he says, you're old enough to ditch your blanket. You feel panic starting to rise in both your tiny five-year-old self and your present-day self.

Suddenly you see why this was repressed. You always thought he just threw it away and hit you when you tried to dig it out of the garbage. You cry helplessly as you watch him toss Mee-Mee into the merrily burning fireplace and your beloved blanket turns to ash.

Then when you scream and cry and ask him why he took Mee-Mee from you he grabs you by the wrist and threatens to hurt you unless you stop crying. You're five and scared and you keep sobbing. You're dragged upstairs, hit repeatedly with a belt, and as you're laying prone and weeping and with red welts rising on your backside, your father says he hates you.

Suddenly you're back in your therapist's office with tears pouring down your face, staring at the ceiling. You tremble briefly, then break down. You're not a grown man right now. You're that terrified five year old boy, in pain and just lost his most beloved possession to a loathsome man you're stuck calling Dad. Your therapist gently helps you sit up. She says something to you, but you don't understand it. Everything sounds like so much static. You bite your lip hard enough to bleed to avoid screaming and disturbing everyone else in the office (and probably sending Earl running from the waiting room to your aid).

Something heavy and fuzzy lands in your lap. You instinctively grip it and pull it close, managing to suss out through touching its ears and face that it's a teddy bear. You sob into its fur, choking back the agonized howls you actually desperately want to let out. Your therapist tells you it's okay, to go ahead and cry as much as you need, that you're safe here, and the reason she had you try and access these memories was so you could work through them.

You can't hold it back. You bury your face in the teddy's fur and scream. You scream until your throat is sore and you're pretty sure you've shed every single tear in your body. You sit with your knees pulled to your chest and your face in the bear's fluff, trembling and letting out soft hiccups occasionally.

Your therapist offers you a cup of water. You down it like it's manna from Heaven. She gently says she'd like to talk to Earl, and do you want him to come back here or can she speak to him in the hall? You look up at her and know the terrified look in your eyes gives away your answer. She nods silently and says she'll be right back with him.

When she re-enters the room with Earl, you hiccup again and reach for him. He settles onto the couch beside you and wraps his arms around you. You respond by burying your face in the crook of his neck instead of the teddy bear's fabric. You don't hear the rest of their conversation. As you try to focus on not hiccuping your guts up and grounding yourself with Earl's warmth and smell, you catch snippets of their conversation- _his father, abusive, forced separation, age regression, extreme distress, replacement._ You can't put two and two together right now. You just want to go home and curl up in bed and sleep for a few hours. Or weeks. Weeks would be better.

When you get home, Earl settles you onto the couch with a throw blanket. He makes sure you're okay, that you're aware of where and who you are, before he kisses you on the temple and says he has to go research something for work and he'll be in the study if you need him. He barely gets the second sentence out before you're asleep. Mercifully, sleep is a black void of nothingness. Nothing seems horribly amiss when you wake, and you and Earl spend the rest of the evening discussing the news of the world and what to cover at work.

A few weeks of little note pass. You notice Earl talking to Falbo here and there, but think nothing of it; they get along well enough and maybe, you figure, she's concerned about you. You've been a little absent, sometimes, but it's easier to zone out than face your traumas head on when something reminds you of them. It's the drive home on Friday that confuses you.

Earl mentions he has something special for you when you get home. You spend the entire ride questioning what the hell it could be; it's not your birthday for two more weeks. It's not your anniversary. It's not a holiday that involves gift-giving, since it's the beginning of June.

Once you're home, he beckons you to the bedroom and you start to wonder if this wasn't all an elaborate way to get you to take him to Pound Town. You begin to open your mouth to say all he has to do is ask, but you're cut off when he presents you with a wrapped gift he produces from under the bed. You take it from him and give him a quizzical, skeptical stare as he urges you to open it.

You unwrap it, untangling a red, fuzzy blanket with sky blue satin trim from a bunch of tissue paper. It takes you a moment to make the connection, but you're stunned into silence when your brain clicks. You look up at Earl with tears of joy brimming in your eyes. He smiles a little and explains that he was talking to Falbo because her girlfriend is a talented seamstress, and your therapist made a mention of a replacement for Mee-Mee as a way for you to get some closure on that particular trauma. He spent several days tracking down the few color photos of you as a baby that exist with Mee-Mee also depicted in the collection of photographs you own to make sure the colors were right.

You're speechless. Your response is simply to throw your arms around him, gripping Mee-Mee 2 in one hand as you hold him as tight as you can. It takes him gently whacking you on the shoulder and croaking that he can't breathe to get you to let go. You apologize hastily, running your fingers through the minky fuzz and over the soft satiny edges. Obviously, it doesn't look exactly like the old Mee-Mee. It's missing a few patches, frayed corners from where you spent hours worrying them until you fell asleep, and it doesn't quite smell as soothing yet, but then again, it's brand new. You still bury your face in her- suddenly, you remember you insisted that Mee-Mee was a girl- and whisper that you missed her so much and you're sorry Dad hurt her.

You can hear the smile in Earl's voice as he asks if you need a minute. You nod. You don't care if you look like a maniac, talking to a piece of fabric. He exits the room after giving you a gentle squeeze on the shoulder. Even though it's only 7 pm, probably a little bit early for adults to be in their pajamas, you change into yours immediately and curl up in bed, gripping Mee-Mee like your life depends on her. You find a corner and begin worrying the satin the way you always did as a boy, the soft fuzzy blanket itself pressed against your cheek.

Maybe you won't sleep with her every night, or drag her everywhere you go like you did as a kid, but none of that matters right now. Right now, you've given your father a massive middle finger, and done it with a baby blanket in your face. You're gonna keep Mee-Mee as long as you damn well please, and if anyone has a problem with it, they can have their problems. She makes you feel safe.

Earl pops his head in the door and asks if you want something to drink. You nod, but don't take Mee-Mee away from your face. You've got about 35 years to catch up on with her.


End file.
